A large handful of parents told the Saratoga Springs City Council that they did not want to see a School Resource Officer in the city’s elementary schools, some citing studies that say the SROs make the students more anxious and aware of potential violence rather than giving them the feeling of security that the SRO, a uniformed Saratoga Springs Police officer, is supposed to give. This is especially true for minority students and students at the lower end of the socio-economic spectrum, they said.
More than one said it was less-than-prudent to be talking of bringing more SROs into the schools when the SSPD is under investigation by the New York Attorney General’s office for civil rights violations. They spoke during public comment.
[Read more about the investigation here.]
Two of the speakers were former Saratoga City Schools Board of Education members, and they reminded the city council that the BoE determines whether or not they want the SRO. This is a conversation carried over from a board meeting last month.
Commissioner of Public Safety James Montagnino later said he is in favor of the SRO program and says that SSPD officers train to higher levels than the state requires in order to be SROs.
However, “we fully recognize the Board of Education has the authority” in this situation, he said. The city council cannot make a move unless the school board asks for help.
He added that if BoE does ask for an officer, his department is ready to share them. He has three trained officers and two more in the training pipeline, he said.
This brought Commissioner of Finance Minita Sanghvi into the discussion. She had earlier told the council that the budget for next year will come in at about $54 million, and she did not think there was room for more SROs.
As well, the schools take students from nearby, not just from Saratoga Springs, so the lion’s share of the budget should come from the schools, not from the city. The school's budget is three times the size of the city budget, she told the board.
She added that if Montagnino currently has money left in his office’s budget to place SROs in the schools this fall, that would not affect next year’s budget.
“The school board should be paying” for the SROs, she told Montagnino.
Mayor Ron Kim agreed with Sanghvi.
Although Montagnino said he believed that he could assign officers to work in the schools, others on the board including the mayor and Commissioner of Accounts Dillon Moran thought the move would require a contract with the schools, and contracts require city council approval.